Tag Archives: empanadas

True story: you should be able to find empanadas at any mexican restaurant in Southern California. They are staples dishes, stuffed breaded pastries that are sometimes spicy, sometimes sweet, and taste as good as cute as they look. While there are many variations of empanadas in various cuisines (Indian, Afghan, Nigerian, and many more! google it) within Mexican cuisine empanadas serve as somewhat of a pastry eaten after dinner or even for breakfast (kind of like pie)! Even within Mexican cuisine there are many variants as well, and in this installment of Mexicali Cooking, I will guide you through a cheesy vegetarian recipes forempanadas.

A crowd of empanadas for the one in your home

In an odd sense, empanadas are likes sugar cookies- you can literally make 100 in a night. It’s not particularly easy, but it is worth it. So, since it’s officially summer, and I am assuming that we all have a little more time to spend doing hobbies, why not make a lot of empanadas? Maybe not 100, but 20 is a good amount. They are pretty easy to make, VERY delicious, and perfect for saving for the next day or the day after that. Although, I will confess, since it is a dough-based recipe it does require some time, but hey, if your friends are coming over in packs of four why not make 20? If you want an afternoon snack, they also serve as the perfect finger-food. Like sugar cookies, they are eaten in 3 bites or less but leave a savory taste on the tongue.

The trick here is making them more spicy and savory than sweet. Empanadas usually have pumpkin, sweet potatoes, or cream filling, gearing them toward after-dinner snack. Here, I made an “it’s 3pm, and I want a snack that I can just warm up in the microwave, but remains tasty” type of empanada. So, to go for the afternoon spice instead of the after dinner sweet taste, you can substitute more sugary fillings with potatoes or a chopped array of bell peppers and cheese. The potatoes have a meaty consistency without all the dense calories, while the cheese adds the melt-in-your-mouth sensation that makes you grab yet another one!

The recipe below can be altered in several ways- all to your liking. The joy of making a staple Mexican dish like empanadas is that you can add your own chef ‘signature’ to them. For me, the cilantro in the dough and addition of curry is what makes them zesty and new. I suggest making alterations of your own as you make this recipe and you cultivate your own signature.

Empanadas are by far the best thing that’s happened to me since arriving in Mendoza. Actually, scratch that: empanadas are one of the many awesome things that I’ve gotten to experience in Argentina. I’ve been known to exaggerate, but my enthusiasm and enamor for this most delicious, stuffed finger food is more than sincere. Whether picking them up from a cheap eatery in town to enjoy in one of the city’s plazas, heating up my host mom’s in our kitchen’s little toaster oven when she isn’t home to prepare lunch, or coming home from a long day of classes to see my host mom (she’s the best) stuffing and pinching their edges closed, I’m a happy girl when it’s empanadas on the menu.

The picadillo (filling), dough, and baking procedures are numerous and vary according to region. Nevertheless, here’s the basic idea: the filling is made from a mixture of meat (beef or chicken), onions, and spices, then stuffed into a wheat-based dough, and then either oven-baked or fried. The type of meat (ground or cubed), proportion of meat to onions, combination of spices, addition of extra ingredients (hard-boiled eggs, raisins, olives, etc.) and the way the empanada dough is sealed, all depends on the region in which they are prepared (and, of course, on the cook’s personal taste). There are even empanadas de choclo that are filled with corn and cheese, and empanadas de atún, filled with tuna or another type of fish. My host mom’s atún version even has a bit of sugar dusted onto the outside of the dough, which is super delicious because the sugar caramelizes a little while baking.

As you might imagine, my host mom makes the best empanadas in Argentina. Her empanadas de carne are adapted from the classic mendocinian version: 1 part ground beef to 2 parts chopped onion cooked with chili, cumin, salt and pepper, and a bit of white wine (that last ingredient isn’t a classic one, but it sure is a good addition). When filling the dough, she adds either green olive or hard-boiled egg slices. Eaten fresh out of the oven, these empanadas are juicy and flavorful. The acidity of the olives complements the sweetness of the filling, and the egg whites and yolks add texture. Overall the best argentine comfort food to rid away any morsel of homesickness.